SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF IN CANADA

SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L'ARCHITECTURE AU CANADA

Volume/Tome 7 NumberIN umero 1 - 2 April/avril I 98 I 2

VICTORIA

For more than half its history Victoria was a or at least Americanized. Warren Heywood Williams typical western frontier town, prostrate before executed Victoria commissions from Portland, the harsh economics of the boom-and-bust cycle. Oregon. When Thomas Hooper came west in 1882 he In an age when architecture was a major medium of brought with him the latest eastern fashion for institutional propaganda we can easily find the work of Henry Hobson Richardson. Richardson evidence of this in the history of its buildings. developed a very rugged "native American" style Thus the combination of stodgy conservatism in which combined many historical influences within the choice of building materials with precosity a predominantly Romanesque or arched style. At in the use of ornament produced architecture of the same time, experiments with new techniques unusually high quality. The image of prosperity and materials in Chicago, particularly the was important to customers and creditors alike. elevator and iron brought in a vogue for taller Brick and stone buildings represented substantial and more "open" facades. In the meantime, investment, were a good insurance risk, and con­ political events solidified the east-west connec­ stituted a public display of faith in the future tion. joined Confederation in of the community. Therefore Victoria's early 1871 and the railway reached the coast in 1885. architects and entrepreneurs built in brick and Victoria enjoyed a brief flirtation with the granite. Dominion "mansarded" style, identifiable by the roofed top floor. By 1912 the design of the The stages of the city's growth are evident in Union Club by a 'Frisco architect was an anachron- the varied styles and changing profile of the ism for with local architects such as Hooper and urban landscape. The earliest commerical core Rattenbury the English Edwardian influences come fronted the Inner Harbour and grew up along Wharf of age. Styles are purified. Real historical and Bastion Streets during the 'Sixties and 'Seven-precedents are evident in Chateau Style buildings ties. Chinatown, north of Johnson Street, reached or Georgian Revival shop fronts. its present form during the 'Eighties and the newer commercial area centering on the Government Finally, recent trends in developing civic aware­ Street spine developed during the 'Nineties. ness have again brought to life Victoria's rich and colourful architectural heritage. The A succession of architects have left their mark redevelopment of Bastion and Centennial Squares on the city; each has represented a phase of with their radiating malls and pedestrian walkways development as well as the tastes of his age. and the designation of historic areas and buildings Sir James Douglas founded the Hudson Bay Company's for preservation indicates a concern with con­ trading fort at Victoria in 1843 but it was only serving the human scale and quality of human life. with official colonial status, conferred in 1849, that specialized administrators such as B.W. Walking Tour Old Town Victoria, copyright Heritage Pearse, surveyor of the townsite, and Herman Otto Tour-Maps Tiedeman, engineer and architect, moved in to organize the colony. Tiedeman was an able prac­ titioner in the High Victorian Eclectic tradition, a decorative idiom which allowed the designer to draw from any number of historic styles and amal­ gamate these in a single building. As applied ornament tended to be "catalogue ordered" it was imported from San Francisco; thus the American flavour of early Victoria's street frontage. The favourite west coast style of these years was the Victorian Italianate. Following the gold rush and incorporation of the City in 1862 Thomas Trounce, builder, and John Teague, architect, popularized this style - no doubt in response to the tastes of Victoria's immigrant American mer­ Cover Illustration: chant class. Teague dominated Victoria's commercial architectural scene well into the Rattenbury sketch proposal for 'Nineties but because the trade axis remained Inner Harbour and C.P. Hotel, north-south even intrusions tended to be American 1903. 3

EMPRESS HOTEL [1907-1929] 721 Government Architect: F. M. Rattenbury polygon turrets relate the structure to Ratten­ bury's Parliament Buildings facing the Empress on the south side of the harbour. The vaguely Second Empire roofline paraphrased the Dominion Post Office (which faced the Empress from the north side of the harbour until its destruction in favour of the present block in 1969) and the first Cus­ toms House in the Mansarded Federal Style. The architect's selection of this apparently eclectic The Empress Hotel first opened its doors on array of elements was not a haphazard one. Togeth- January 21st, 1908. As early as 1903 two promin- er they associate the structure with the cultures ent citizens, Capt. J.W. Troup and Harry G. Barnard,of English and French Canada and their union within had mooted the idea of a large tourist hotel in the Dominion. The Picturesque composition captures Victoria and had interested the Canadian Pacific the flavour of the scenic beauties of British Col- Railroad in the project. At a time when a rail umbia as Van Horne had intended--while at the same bridge from the mainland to Island with time particularizing the hotel's location within Victoria as the western terminus of the railroad the local landscape of the Inner Harbour. (Victoria was still being promoted, this was a timely ven- v1as often called Canada's "gateway" or "portal" to ture. And despite the fact that the bridge never the Pacific. It may not be fortuitous that Ratten­ materialized, the site, convenient to the terminus bury chose the Romanesque twin-tower gateway form of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway and also the as the central facade block of the Empress). C.P.R. ferry dock, proved a lucrative choice. The necessary acreage was reclaimed from what was pre­ Rattenbury's original unit, comprising the central viously an expanse of tidal mudflats. The city block of the present-day structure, contained one granted the railroad the land together with gener­ hundred and sixty rooms. Demand was such, however, ous tax concessions. that north and south wings of 74 and 100 rooms respectively were added in 1910 and 1913. In 1912 The Empress is one of a long line of Chateau Style the Ballroom and Library were added--this by W.S. railroad hotels originating in William Van Horne's Painter who also supplied the designs for later dream of a chain of picturesque hotels commanding C.P.R. hotels the Banff Springs Hotel [1912- the choicest views in the Rockies and Selkirks. 1913] and Chateau Lake Louise [1912-1913]. In Stylistically it is directly related to a series of 1929 two hundred and seventy three new guest rooms predecessors designed for the C.P.R. by Bruce and suites were completed under the direction of Price: the original Banff Springs Hotel (1886-l888),J.W. Orrock, Engineer of Buildings for the C.P.R. the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City (1892), and The conservatory was added to the ballroom in the the Place Viger Hotel and Station in Montreal same year. (1896-1898). Rattenbury's design is a development of Price's work (which itself remained very close The general contractor for the original construc­ to Richardsonian influences) and the original arch­ tion was J.L . Skeene but the foundation engineers, aeological sources, namely the Medieval Loire E.C. and R.M . Sharkland were brought out from chateaux. Within the vocabulary of this style, Boston to design the foundations and while placing Rattenbury provided a building uniquely suited to the piles for the main block they also drove those both function and location. Flat wall surfaces, a for projected future additions in order to pre­ picturesque broken roofline, the concentration of serve the structure from damage in the future pile detail in the roof architecture, neo-Gothic dormers driving vibrations. Mrs. Hayton Reid, wife of and the overall emphasis on verticality recall the C.P. Hotels' superintendent, was the chief Price's work in the Chateau Frontenac. Many ele­ interior decorator and directed the furnishing of m~nts, however, evidence Rattenbury's personal the hotel--much to Rattenbury's horror. ~1gnature. The stylized Tudor arches of the porch 1ntroducing the Elizabethan flavour of the lobby From Victoria, A Primer for Regional History in and the quatrefoils along the cornice appear in Architecture 1843-1929. Martin Segger and Douglas local domestic buildings such as the 1903 Maclure­ Franklin Watkins Glen, N.Y.: American Life Founda­ Rattenbury Lieutenant Governor's Residence. Domed tion, 1979. p.p. 138-39. 4

VARIETY AND DECORUM

Style and Form in the Work of of the enterprise, the high quality of construc­ Samuel Maclure 1860 - 1920. tion and modernity of design, F.M. Rattenbury's James Bay monument was unique.7 Samuel Maclure was born in lR60 at New Westmins­ ter, British Columbia. His father was a Royal Hpwever, the severe neo-classical plan, somewhat Engineer and surveyor. Maclure studied painting softened by American briefly in Philadelphia but rarely travelled detailing, had already been pioneered in Victoria after that. He read architecture while a tele­ by the work of architect Thomas Hooper in institu­ graph operator with the Esquimalt and Nanaimo tional and commercial architecture. The Centen­ Railroad on Vancouver Island, then entered an nial Methodist Church (1891), Metropolitan Metho­ architectural practice with Richard Sharpe of dist Church (1890), Protestant Orphanage (1892) New Westminster in l8R7 and moved to Victoria in and the Metropolitan Building (1903), for instance, 1892. Maclure died in Victoria in 1929.1 signified new trends in building design, a shift away from the eclectic styles.8 Similar changes Maclure is remembered as a family man, quiet, were taking place in residential architecture . with a sparkling sense of humour, an inquisitive Common to all this work was a more sparing approach romantic, generous to a fault, oblivious to econ- to decorative design and a bold, almost aggressive omics, yet meticulous, to the point of nearly use of native, indeed natural materials: local bankrupting some of his contractors with exacting granite and native woods in the parliament build­ attention to detail and quality in his commissions.ings and Metropolitan United Church; rough cut cedar shingles and unornamented fir detailing in While his renowned British Columbia contemporary, the James Bay bungalows of Samuel Maclure and Francis Rattenbury, did little domestic work, Thomas Hooper. In the prestigious Rockland area Maclure did no institutional and only about half this change in popular architectural taste was a dozen commercial buildings. The one important dramatically symbolized by the new Government domestic institutional commission, Government House of 1903, the first major institutional House (1901, destroyed by fire in 1957), was commission constructed in a style which admitted shared by both men. only the most minimal of historical references, a commission shared by ~1aclure and Rattenbury A founding member of the Vancouver Island Arts together. and . ~rafts Society, his work published in such int~rnational journals as the Canadian Architect The press described the new Cary Castle as of and Builder,2 Craftsman,3 The Studio,4 Country the "modern school", "novel in effect", to Life,5 and Review Moderne,6 Maclure was well which Rattenbury had added his own comments: within the tradition of William ~1orris and the Arts-and-Crafts Movement. And like Morris in " . .. a picturesque and stately resi- England, and H.H. Richardson in America, Maclure dence .... The charm ... lies in its sought to define an architectural idiom compat­ harmony with the surroundings, and in ible with the geography and climate of British broad picturesque groupings and choice Columbia. of materials."9 Well read, and continually aware of international Whether approached from Rockland Avenue, or seen currents and trends through an omniverous appetitefrom the Dallas foreshore a mile and a half for architectural and fashion journals, ~1aclure below the rocky escarpment, Government House drew on a number of local and foreign sources for rambled gracefully along the brow of the hill, a range of building types and styles which he its brown shingle cladding blurring distinc- marked with a distinctive character of his own. tions between wall surfaces and roof planes, castellated projections and gables, organically The construction of the new Parliament Buildings blending the structure with its heavily treed in Victoria (1892-7) marked the beginning of a environs. Even so the ghost of the old Cary new era in British Columbia building design and Castle had not been exorcised. The baronial construction. Both in terms of the massive scale image was skillfully integrated with the new

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design through a number of subtly contrived son in the United States as colonial (New England) visual references: the crennellated masonry shingle ~tyle, or a bold and rugged Romanesque tower block abutting the central gable, the similarly treated but shingled northeast tower idiom which he favoured for larger commissions. echoed similar if more primitive details of the Eventually domestic journals such as The Studio old Cary Castle. and Country Life in Britain, along with the Homes and Gardens and The Craftsman in the- United States The context for these structures was a series were promoting the new aesthetic which hoped for of powerful international architectural move­ a new "artistic" lifestyle for the adherents - in ments which even practitioners on the isolated the main, of course, the leisured classes. In North West Coast of America could not ignore. architecture in particular, the trade journals quickly seized the new wave-banner. H.H. Richard­ The late nineteenth century witnessed a revolu­ son and a host of disciples, W.R. Emerson, Wilson tion in aesthetic taste from which two streams Eyre, J.C. Stephens, Bruce Price, and McKim, emerged, both indicating an overthrow of High Mead and White, were lionized by the professional Victorian eclecticism. The first was the devel­ journal, American Architect. The British Archi­ opment of a classical revival, reflected in tect continually featured the work of Morris architecture by French Beaux-Arts aesthetics - inspired designers: C.R. Ashby, W.'R. Lethaby, the primary North American monument being the M.H. Bailley Scott,C.F.A. Voysey, R. Blomfield.lO Chicago World's Fair of 1893. The Victoria In Canada these two streams were synthesized by an Parliament buildings lie within this stream. influential Toronto based periodical The Canadian The second was the rise of the Arts-and-Crafts Builder and Architect. Movement. Maclure's move to Victoria in 1892 marks a radical The term Arts-and-Crafts was first used in change from his New Westminster work. At first connection with a London exhibition society Maclure concentrated on smaller commissions which, formed in 1886 to promote a higher quality of like his own house on Superior Street (1897) adapt­ design and production in the applied arts. Based ed the locally popular colonial bungalow house­ on ideas promoted in particular by William t1orris type to the cheapest and most readily available and John Ruskin the movement represented an material: shingles. So popular in the 1890s these attempt to get away from the borrowed forms of houses became known as "maclure bungalows" and no history styles in favour of basing design on the doubt did much to enhance the fledgling architect's intrinsic properties of materials, structure, and reputation. local tradition. If an historical theme still imbued the new aesthetic it favoured the "golden The prevalence of the colonial bungalow house type age of the era ftsmen" which for ~1orri s and Ruskin in Victoria testifies to Victoria's communication meant the late middle ages. The movement also links, via the Royal Naval base (Esquimalt), as incorporated a search for nationally indigenous well as commerce and travel with the Far East, in architectural styles, identified for instance by particular British India, Malaya and Australia. William Morris in England as a kind of red-brick From the 1890s on Victoria was a popular retire­ and tile, Queen Anne; by architect H.H. Richard- ment centre for colonial administrators.ll 6

Early in his career Maclure developed a fascina- Cecil Croke r Fox, who came out to manage Maclure' s tion with vernacular Georgian. No doubt the first Vancouver office from 1903-1914, apprenticed under source lay in the local structures of the Hudson's Voysey .l5 The W.C. Nichol house of 1913, built in Bay Company that were of symbolic significance to Vancouver from the Vancouver office, owes much to British Columbia. Later his interest was to become such prototypes as "Dover Court" and "The Cottage" more sophisticated so that later essays were well at Bishop's Itchington, Warwickshire, also by Voy- within the mainstream of the Edwardian Georgian sey . Revival. It was, however, Maclure's versions of Georgian, Maclure reviewed the Hudson's Bay Company form as usually featuring a half-timbered second storey, an Edwardian upper-class house type. The Robin occasionally with a shingle or roughcast envelope, Dunsmuir house, constructed in 1900 as a wedding which were much copied by other local architects gift for a son of coal baron , was and became Victoria's most popular house type for a shingle frame building . The basic rectangular managerial classes (1905- 1914). form with its hipped roof and symmetrical rectang­ ular facade is, however, obviously Georgian and The Swiss or Tyrolese chalet has a long history as represents a healthy, if rather anique, compromise an evocative image in the Western world and dates between current American fashion for H.H. Richard­ at least as far back as mid-19th century romanti­ son's shingle style and Colonial Georgian as cism. Even today this image of the compact , represented by Chief Factor (later Governor) sturdy, log structure clinging to alpine ridges Douglas's house in James Bay (1 850) or the Craig­ amid breathtaking mountainous terrain, excites the flower Farm's "Manor" house (1858).12 popular imagination . With the rise of the pictur­ esque movement in the 19th century and the increas­ ing importance of theories of landscape gardening, the Swiss Chalet (in sometimes nearly unrecogniz­ able permutations) became one choice among the vast eclectic array of styles available to the mid-century architectural practitioner .l6

Hudson's Bay Company Trade Store Building. Constructed 1888, Fort Saint James, British Columbia.

Maclure was not unique in his interest in the Georgian vernacular . Frank Lloyd Wright com­ Richardson House constructed 1913, Victoria, B.C. pleted a striking essay in the style with the Architect: Samuel Maclure. An example of the W.H. Winslow house at Forrest Park, Illinois, as Georgian "survival" . early as 1893 . 13 In England, Charles Annesley Voysey, himself seminal to the future of the British domestic architecture, experimented with Traditional features of the chalet are the robust Georgian extensively, a good example being the A.J.log or timberconstruction, horizontal proportions l~ard h?u~e, "Dov:r Cou~t" in Essex, publ~shed in emphasized by the expansive, massive roof, gener­ the Br1t1sh Arch1tect 1n 1890.14 The ~lr1ght and ours eave projections, and sheltered balconies Voysey connections are important. Maclure is which often appear as an integral part of the reputed to have corresponded with F.L . Wright . structure. Various degrees of applied decoration 7

follow local folk traditions such as fretted struction. Only minor attempts are made in the bargeboards and ballustrades, and elaborately massing and detailing to relieve the centralized turned structural members. Two basic roof forms plan and symmetrical facades. The massive masonry predominate; the hipped gable is popular in the construction, bay windows, tower ramparts and Berne area. A simpler gable ended roof, with the quatrefoil fretted bargeboards remain mere gothic ridge at right angles to the main facade, is gestures, superimposed on severe Edwardian class­ genrally more common throughout the Alps. icism. As with all picturesque architecture which works Again, Maclure's work in popularizing a house type according to a pattern of "appropriate" formal played a major role in defining the architectural images, the chalet was considered a landscape character of Victoria and in this instance seems ornament particularly suited to topography in the to have been a highly personal designer's solution, grand alpine manner. Its appearance in Victoria rather than a specifically client-based demand. is therefore not surprising as one of the major The chalet style was appropriate to topography and scenic features of the City is the coastal Olympic took greatest advantage of the unique scenic qual­ Mountain Range. Although on the mainland, these ities of the local landscape. References to the snow-clad mountains form an impressive backdrop chalet often appear in Maclure's work. One of his in most vistas out from the gradual benches which earlier extant commissions in Victoria, the Porter rise gently back from the island coast line of House of 1897, like Tiedeman's earlier Colonial Ad­ Victoria. ministration Buildings, combined the chalet form with features of the Colonial Bungalow. However, The Colonial 1\dministration Building (designed by the majority of ~1aclure's "chalet" commissions were H.O. Tiedeman in 1859) carried obvious chalet refer- obviously a response to the demands of a middle­ ences in the detailing, recognizing the fact that class clientelle within the vocabulary of the they were consciously sited so as to be seen Arts-and-Crafts movement. Following sounct pictur- against the Olympic backdrop.l? esque principles,the Chalet style was recommended for "bank" or sidehill rural building sites. This Towards the end of the 19th century the chalet suited many of Victoria's prestige building lots became more popular as a source for architectural which in the early years were located in subdivi- inspiration. This accompanied the rise of the sions opened up on a series of benches overlooking Arts-and-Crafts Movement and a general interest in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, usually capturing a folk and vernacular revivals. In the United States,dramatic view of the Olympic Mountains in the for instance, Bruce Price experimented with the distance. form in his -W. Chandler House, Tuxedo Park, New York (1885-1886). The fashionable architectural A chronological series of commissions trace the team of McKim, Mead and White followed with the evolution of Maclure's "chalet" style. Judge W. Low House in Bristol, Rhode Island (1887) and McPhillips' house, built below Rockland Avenue in even Frank Lloyd Wright designed his own house in 1889, is academically closest to decorative Oak Park, Illinois (1889) with obvious reference Tyrolese archetypes with the gable end projecting to the chalet . In Canada during this period, the out from the bank, extensive roof overhang, shel­ chalet style was used hy the C.P.R. for its Rocky tered balcony, rope-moulding and heart-motif Mountain stations and resort architecture. fretted detailing. The H.A. Munn house, built soon after in 1900, was still very close to the "Tudor Revival" was dictated for Maclure's largest archetype, although the form is more compact and country house commission.33 Mining magnate James the detail tightly controlled to relieve the Dunsmuir commissioned Hatley Park in 1908 and vast expanses of shin9le cladding. Further var­ requested that the design reflect the ramblinq iations on the theme continued through the sixteenth century English manor, Compton Wynyates. early years of the 1900s. Some, such as the Maclure's ponderous gabled and castellated res­ Major Cecil Roberts house of 1905, featured the ponse, set within the 650 acre Dunsmuir estates Burnese Oberland hipped gable as opposed to the in Sooke does echoe its British source from one more common open gables with generous roof over­ or two views. Actually, however, the plan owes hangs. much to the earlier Government House, in which Dunsmuir was living as Lieutenant Governor of The high point of Maclure's work in this idiom British Columbia while the house as under con- was achieved, however, in a large commission for 8 businessman J. J. Shallcross who along with Maclure True log structures as conscious architecture on was a founding member and president of the local the West Coast were at first used for quite defin­ Arts-and-Crafts Society.20 This massive house, ite, if slightly bizarre purposes. The log build­ built on a huge granite outcropping, commanded a ing appeared as "innovative" propaganda at a magnificent view of the Straits Gulf Islands, and succession of international expositions. The beyond that the snow-capped peaks of the Coast "Idaho Building" at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair Range puncturing the main shoreline. The shingle by architect K.K. Cutter, (incidentally a close style house combined a rugged granite first storey friend of Maclure's) was dressed up as the and a massive floating gable roof with extended familiar chalet and intended to promote the eaves and built-in balconies. During the rest of State's forest industry. The Oregon Forestry his career Maclure, often in response to specific Building for the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition demands of clients (such as in the M.P. Beattie at Portland (architects, Doyle and Clark) was a house at Parksville, 1920), constantly returned complex unbarked timber building featuring vague to this design as a major source for other commis­ chalet but mainly Classical Revival references sions. with a massive Doric portico comprised of tree­ trunk columns. The "Forestry Building" at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle in 1909 (architects, Saunders and Lawton) was a marvellous piece of Beaux-Arts with a curved peristyle executed in unbarked tree trunks, only to be upstaged by the famous "Log Parthenon" built for Oregon at the Panama Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915 (architects, Foulkes and Hogue).22 In this vein F.M. Rattenbury designed a series of small stations for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1911, essentially log pavilions with his hallmark, a chateau dormer inserted in the roof. About 1905 the American arm of the Arts-and- Crafts movement began to promote the log cabin as suitable for "resort" or "recreational" arch­ J. Shallcross house. Victoria. 1911. itecture. One of the key periodicals, The Craftsman, under the editorship of Gustave Stickly, No doubt as a result of Maclure's lead, other man­ published a series of domestic log designs for ifestations of the chalet style continued to "the summer camp or holiday home" in 1907. In appear in Victoria into the 1920s . The chalet the Northwest, however, with some notable excep­ style was, and indeed is, appropriate to the topo­ tions, this was by and large ignored by the graphy and took greatest advantage of the unique architectural profession. scenic qualities of the local landscape. Maclure, predictably, first incorporated the The North American log cabin conjures up a number rustic log structure as furniture in landscape of associations : the frontier spirit, the heroic projects. The garden house for Mr. Bower of pioneer, primitive individualism against brute Oak Bay in 1908 was typical of these.23 Until nature, the patrimony of the West to which we owe recently one of these tea-house structures for our present life of materialistic superabundance. Maclure's design stood in the grounds of Govern­ However, A.J. Downing in his influential book ment House in Victoria. "Clovelly", built in 1910 Cottage Residences (1842) deemed log structures as a wilderness and retreat for a wealthy Victor­ appropriate only as garden ornaments. Logs, or ian lawyer, Mr. Moresby White, was the closest "branches", were used in his illustrations only Maclure came to the log cabin ideal .24 The house, as applied decoration, usually trelliages to however, with its rustic watertower, bark roof, and unite house and garden. The image followed popu­ slab, unbarked exterior, was set amid one of the lar contemporary thought: a Rousseauean notion most exotic garden landscapes in Victoria. When linking the primitive pleasure of rustic nature Maclure exhibited the plans at the Industrial and with the well-manicured garden. Allied Arts Exhibition at New York in 1925, among 9 those favourably impressed was the reviewer for within the Arts-and-Crafts aesthetic requirements the Parisian publication, Review Moderne, who for the natural expression of native materials in praised it as being truly evocative of the West structure and decoration. Coast.25 Maclure's first major experiment in the Tudor A proposal for a large log ranch house from Revival was the St. Charles Street A.C. Flumer- r~aclure 's Vancouver office for property magnate felt house of 1896, a decorated version of his R.V. Winch26 was not taken up and the only other earlier Royal Columbia hopsital at New Westminster, log commission was the large summer retreat for and certainly an eclectic experiment. The Joseph Lieutenant-Governor \4.C. NichofZ7 at Sidney, S.C. ~Jilson residence of 1901 demonstrated a clarifica­ Here again this massive rambling structure combin- tion of materials and form although the brick base ing references to the chalet, the American log and busy use of half-timbering reveals a lingering cabin, and Downing's picturesque cottages was set debt to the Victorian picturesque. The ultimate in several acres of meticulously landscaped gar- synthesis of Maclure's concerns within the Tudor dens overlooking the sea. None of these buildingsRevival is probably represented by two commissions: were truly log, but rather unbarked slab on frame. the Biggenstaff Wilson house of 1905 and the C.F. Todd house of 1907.30 In the Wilson house Maclure Following English Arts-and-Crafts precedents, how- revives a symmetrical hip-roofed Georgian form. ever, it was the Elizabethan or "Tudor" revival The house rises out of an informal landscape; a which was to prove most popular among Maclure's random ashlar ground floor unites the structure to clients. Victorian "tudoresque" had been intro- the site, and then a half-timbered superstructure duced to the City in the Rockland area by L.B. demonstrates skillful handling of detailing to Triman's design for "Ellesmere:, the 1890 residencearticulate the architectural features and blend of the current C. P.R. president's brother, James the buildng with its arboreal setting. The C.F. Angus.28 A more fullblown version, by architect Todd house is more frankly a picturesque essay in W. Ridgeway Wilson, was built overlooking Rockland the Elizabethan mode, although tightly controlled for Hewitt Bostock in 1894.29 Rattenbury contrib- through the symmetrical grouping of elements and uted to the Tudor Revival with a hous~. also on generous horizontal massing pierced by gables, Rockland, for the Dumbleman family in 1903. It roof forms and chimneys. If the Wilson and Todd remained, however, for ~1aclure to perfect a formulahouses represent a normative mediar style, Maclure which gave the Tudor Revival a unique expression was not oblivious to extreme variations within

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W. C. Nichol House, 1923

• - 7 : _-_ .. -·'. , ,.~- . , ~- ' t .'-·- • J ...... 10 the theme. The William Todd house on St. Charles and personal contacts, Maclure was heir to all wi th its pantiled roof, battered stucco walls and of these influences. Yet he only rarely produced half-timbered grill work at the second floor level the rambling English country house so fashionable is a Californian compromise to Rockland Tudor. among his English contemporaries. Instead, the The Richard Hall residence on Linden just below patterned grill-work of the half-timbered idiom Rockland (1912) has the buttressed corners, flaired is used as a decorative, and occasionally expres- and hipped roof, and crisp, attenuated lines in sive, motif on most of his basic house types. Even the manner of the leading English Arts-and-Crafts in the rustic log structures, the half-timbered architect, C.F.A. Voysey.3l The half-timbering pattern and techniques are echoed in the applied is hardly an Elizabethan gesture here, but merely slab-boards. serves to articulate formal elements of the design. This building also records that Cecil Croker Fox, It is something of an anachronism then that Maclure's Vancouver office partner, had traine~ ~1aclure is remembered as a "pseudo-Tudor" under Voysey. archi tect of Victoria even though his work, and that of his contemporary confreres whom he At the other extreme is the St . Charles Street H. influenced greatly, gave Victoria its so-called Beasely house of 1912 . 32 Voysey's American "English charm" . ~1acl ure 's "English Gothic" counterpart was F.L . Wright and in this commis­ veneer was a particular response to a client­ sion Maclure used the floating roof planes, and based demand. His major customers were new­ excessively geometric handling of structural and world, new-found gentlemen who imagined them­ decorative elements to achieve an effect approxi­ selves retiring to the old world pastoral mating Wright's W. H. Winslow house of 1893 at pleasures of their baronial estates . To Maclure's Forest Hill . credit, however, his designs were more subtle and complex in the imagery of their response . The Tudor Revival runs like a unifying theme This included the entire range of Arts-and- through all Maclure's work, from the late 1890s Crafts beliefs in the efficacy of materials over to the 1920s . As a vernacular revival style caprice, folk over civilized, geography over "Gothic" matured from its Romantic beginning industry, indigenous over foreign. During his with Wyatt and Pugin, then the aggressive half­ lifetime Samuel r~aclure created a series of timbered Tudor of George Devey, R.N . Shaw, and architectural statements which, although in later, M.H. Bailley Scott in Britain - and the some ways almost naively derivitive, were also shingled "Queen Anne" of H.H . Richardson, Bruce highly personal and unique - one might rather Price, and then the firm of McKim, Mead and say distinctively Canadian. White in the United States. Through the journals,

Footnotes Eaton, L. The Architecture of Samuel Maclure, l . Contemporary and recent references for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, personal and professional life of Samuel 1971. Maclure includes: Segger , r~. "In Search of Appropriate Form", British Columbia from the Earliest times to Canadian Collector, Vol. II. No. 3, the Present , Vol . IV Clark, Vancouver, 1914, May/June 1976, pp. 51-55 . pp . 1063-4; Obits: Daily Colonist, August 9, 1929, p. 4; ?.. Canadian Architect and Builder: January 1894, Daily Colonist, August 25, 1929~ p. 10; and p. 12 (Temple Building); February 1899 (first Lort , R. A. Jou r nal of the Royal Architectural Maclure home) ; May 1899 (Flumerfeldt House); Institute of Canada (B . C. Centennial Issue) March 1908 (Martin House); April 1908 (Hatley 1958, pp . 144-115; Lort R.A. "Castle in the Park). Country", Daily Colonist,March 6, 1960, pp . 4-5. For more recent assessments see: 3. "A House in Vancouver that shows English Trad­ itions Blended with Frank Exp ression of Smyly, C. "The Maclure Tradition", Western Western Life". Craftsman, March 1908, pp. Living, June 1978, pp. 6- 8. 675-681. 11

Biggerstaff Wilson House, Victoria, 1905.

4. "Recent Designs in Western Architecture". 8. Maser, L. and M. Segger, City of Victoria Studio, Vol. 45, 1911, pp. 124-5. Central Area Heritage Conservation Report, City of Victoria 1977, pp. 54-73. Also 5. Nobbs, P. "Some recent Develonments in Segger, M. and Franklin, D. Victoria: A Canadian Architecture", Country Life, N.Y. Primer for Local History in Architecture, Vol. 43, January 1923 pp. 34-41. American Life Foundation, N.Y., 1979, p. 42. 6. Revue Moderne, Paris, December 1925. 9. Daily Colonist, August 16, 1903. For the complete history of Government House see 7. The standard reference for the life and career Cotton, P. Vice Regal Residences, Elgin Press, of arc hi teet F .r~. Rattenbury is Teks ten, T., Vancouver, ~9 8 1; also, Reksten, op.cit. Rattenbury, Sono Nis Press, Victoria, 1978. pp. 54-75.

·.' (~ ' • J • ', <;.. 12

10. For the best discussion of the overlapping 28. Segger, M. and Franklin, D. op. cit. pp. English and American influences see Kornwolf , 273-5. J., J.M.H. Baillie Scott and the , John Hopkins Press, Bali­ 29. Ibid.,p.271. more, 1972. 30. Eaton, L., op. cit. 11. Segger, M. and Franklin, D., op. cit. pp. 25-30. 31. SCML AP748. 12 . Ibid., pp. 324-327. 32. SCML AP209. 13. For a chronological account of Wright's work see Storrer, W.A., The Architecture of Frank 33. SCML AP475. Lloyd Wright : A Complete Catalogue, M.I.T . Press, Cambridge, 1974. 14. The best critical discussion of Voysey appears in Kornwolf, op. cit. pp. 11-80. 15. Correspondence: J . Brandon-Jones to author, Martin Segger January 16, 1974 and February 14, 1975. Maltwood Museum 16. Scully, V. The Shingle Style (revised), Yale University Press, New Haven, 1971. pp. lix ff. 17. Segger, M. ed. The British Columbia Parliament Buildings, ARCON, Vancouver, 1979, pp. 39-62.

18. Special Collections, r~acPherson Library, University of Victoria (Hereafter SCML) No. AP 1247ff. 19. SCML AP1584. The nominating committee presents to the member­ ship the following names as potential members 20. Johnson-Dean, C. Josephine Crease, Masters of the SSAC Board, subject to a vote held at Thesis, University of Victoria, 1980. the Annual Business Meeting - Friday 3 April 1981 at 11:45 a.m., Captain's Palace Restaurant, 21. SCML uncatalogued architectural plans. Victoria 22. The best discussion of these structures Secretary - Dan Schneider appears in Vaughan, T. and Ferriday, V.G., Nova Scotia - Gary Shutlak eds. Space, Style and Structure, Building Quebec - Luc Noppin in North West America, Oregon Historical Ontario - Joan Simon Society, Portland, 1974. British Columbia - Douglas Franklin 23. SCML AP 236. 24. SCML uncatalogued plans. Session topics are being sought for the 1982 con­ ference to be held in Ottawa. There will be at 25. Review Moderne, op. cit. least one joint session with the Folklorists Asso­ ciation. A session has also been proposed on the 26. SCML AP 1895. theme of energy and architecture. Suggestions are welcome for possible session themes, as are offers 27. SCML AP1290. to chair sessions on specific topics. Please con­ tact John Lehr, Vice-President, SSAC/SEAC, Dept.of Geography, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg R3B 2E9

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